Visitations

UK art-rockers' fourth album finds them reinstating the lo-fi abrasion of their debut, marking a slight return to form.

For a band that's worked so carefully to discredit rock's premium on accessibility and idolatry (see: surgical-mask get-ups, cryptic song titles, singer Ade Blackburn's inscrutable delivery), Clinic's discography follows the standard pop playbook to a tee: They released a string of early EPs and the primordial, career-making debut album (2000's Internal Wrangler), followed by a more refined, smoothed-out sophomore effort (2002's Walking With Thee), and then the meandering, disappointing third album (2004's Winchester Cathedral). So you don't have to listen to Visitations to know that the Liverpool foursome's fourth album is the inevitable Return to Form, a reinstatement of Internal Wrangler's lo-fi abrasion that will be wholeheartedly welcomed by those who found themselves dozing off during Winchester Cathedral's second half.

Despite all their knowing nods to the rock crit-approved canon-- from the Velvet Underground and Phil Spector to Can and Pixies to Lee Perry and Smokey Robinson-- Clinic have always thought more like hip-hop producers than a retro-rock band; their greatest achievements have been the product of radical recontextualizing rather than simple recycling. But on Visitations, Clinic's source material is... themselves. As refreshing as it is to hear the band rock out again with such sinister/seductive charisma, Visitations essentially peaks with its two high-contrast opening tracks, the crater-stomping hillbilly rampage "Family" and the ghostly girl-group piece "Animal Human", both of which also account for the album's very minor aesthetic developments: namely that guitarist Hartley seems to have purchased a finger slide and wah-wah pedal.

Beyond that, it's business as usual: "Tusk" is the sort of revved-up garage-punk racket heard on the band's early singles; "Harvest (Within You)" assumes the bassline bounce of Internal Wrangler's "The Second Line" (though, unlike its predecessor, it resists the urge to lock into a four-on-the-floor beat); "If You Could Read Your Mind" pulses with the strobe-lit go-go groove of Internal Wrangler's title track, right down to the maracas and psych-out effects.

If this cross-referencing seems excessive, it's only because Clinic's recombinant rock so wantonly invites it. Throughout the album, drummer Carl Tunney actually sounds determined not to hit his snare, relying instead on a relentless kickdrum thump and clipped hi-hat ticks that sublimate the rhythm while emphasizing the songs' corrosive surfaces. This lends Visitations a rumbling, tumbling momentum but makes the album sound more uniform than it ought to; "Family" and "Children of Kellogg" are practically the same song, except the former ends with a bomb explosion while the latter dissolves into a brief slowdance denouement that you'll wish the band had explored further.

Though Visitations is not without moments of calm (for instance, the melodica-guided moonlit stroll of "Paradise"), there's nothing here nearly as affecting as Internal Wrangler's "Distortions" or Winchester Cathedral's "Falstaff"-- an emotional centerpiece where we get a glimpse of the fear and vulnerability otherwise shielded by Blackburn's intimidating mask. For all the possibilities suggested by their debut album, Clinic are threatening to become the sort of rock band of which you only really need to own one album, and that album remains Internal Wrangler. But in lieu of that, Visitations makes for a handy placebo.